Enhanced warehouse sustainability through material handling battery charging strategies: an economic and environmental empirically grounded analytical model

The demand for efficient warehouse operations has boosted the need for improved performance in material handling activities, which still largely rely on forklifts and significantly contribute to warehouse energy consumption. Despite the interest in sustainability-related challenges, the literature still lacks analytical models based on empirical data supporting practitioners in selecting the most suitable battery charging strategy for material handling equipment (MHE). To address this gap, this study proposes an empirically grounded analytical model considering opportunity charging (OC) strategy and integration of a battery energy storage system (BESS). OC aims to utilise surplus energy generated from renewables, such as photovoltaic (PV) systems, while BESS focuses on storing PV energy surplus for optimised charging times. The methodology adopted combines the development of analytical models with empirical data obtained from publicly available reports, standards and databases. The model is applied to four industrial business cases, where economic and environmental impacts of OC and BESS are assessed. Findings suggest that OC is effective in warehouses with high PV energy surplus generation, while BESS provides benefits for warehouses low PV energy surplus. The model offers a framework and multiple real-world applications for supporting practitioners in their decision-making process towards sustainable MHE and Net-Zero energy goal.